Page 24 of Ex-Military Biker’s Bride

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for saving me again.” She's crying properly now and not hiding it. “I should have told you I was going. I tried to write you a note, but I couldn’t.”

“I'm not letting you go. You’re mine now.”

“That's a terrible thing to say to a woman.”

“Probably.”

“Say it again.”

High Vale comes up under the wing. The sun is glinting off the metal roof of the Saloon. The lot is full of bikes and Doc is standing outside, looking up. I tip the wing as I fly past to the strip outside of town.

Savage leans forward between the seats.

“No hard feelings about my truck. Hawk said he’d be driving it back himself. I knew there was a reason he kept a spare set of my keys. Apart from me losing them all the time, of course.”

Olivia laughs. It's a little hysterical, but it’s the best sound I’ve heard all day.

“Where are we going?” she asks.

“Home,” I tell her.

EPILOGUE - OLIVIA

One month later

The High Vale Recorder comes out on Thursdays, runs to twelve pages, and is mostly preoccupied with high school sports and a column about the roaming habits of deer.

This Thursday it has my name on it.

Fifteen hundred words on Marvin's. It celebrates fifty years of a man unlocking that door before five in the morning and four generations of families eating breakfast at the same counter, plus some light-hearted gossip about the regulars.

I interviewed nine people and it’s the least prestigious thing I’ve ever written.

But it has my name on the byline. Olivia Martin, new resident of High Vale and local reporter. Marvin's pinned it up by the register with a heart drawn around my name. I’ve been promised free coffee and pastries for life.

Savage is in the hangar eating donuts off a tool bench while Lucky does something to the Cessna’s engine.

“What I'm saying is there ought to be a commemorative plaque,” Savage says.

“On your truck?”

“Yes, on Sheila. Something tasteful. Brass, maybe.” He points half a chocolate donut at me. “Your ol’ lady never missed a beat. Hell of a girl, like my Sheila. Brave as hell.”

“Savage, has anyone told you that you’re nuts?”

“They have, and they stopped breathing afterwards.”

I sit on the wing step in the sun, listening to them joke around. I’m safe here, for now. Rotmere thinks I’m in their pocket, living right where they can keep an eye on me. I’ve already written a couple of stories that leave a bad taste in my mouth. But I’m deeper undercover than I’ve ever been before, working for the Outlaws MC, just like Lucky is.

Then Doc's pickup comes through the gate.

He doesn't get out, and instead he leans on the door with his elbow through the open window and waits for Lucky to walk over. I walk with him.

“Bethany says Rotmere lifted your suspension,” Doc says. “She’s tracking their outbound correspondence. Effective Monday. Same rotation, same rate. They’re down a pilot since Budkin disappeared.”

Lucky nods. “So they bought the whole robbery distraction and nobody clocked the plane?”